something like karma
by TheHarleyQueen
Summary: It was a nice change, to be more powerful than her mother.


So, Mal stole the wand.

A couple of days of being _gaslit_ and seeing how _lovely_ the people of Auradon were wasn't going to change Mal's mind. She'd decided, and she'd made her decision _long_ before Ben had remembered them.

Auradon was nice, she guessed, in a superficial way, but she didn't trust it. She didn't trust the fact that Ben had _known_ that she'd spelled him and done nothing about it. She didn't trust Audrey and Chad, who'd been sniping at them since day one without ever considering the fact that Mal had been in a _gang_. She didn't trust the fact that Queen Leah saw her, and _immediately_ tried to have her sent back {_sure, she probably should have, but, well, wasn't it kind of __**rude**__ to just assume?_}.

The point was, that Auradon wasn't what it said it was, and Mal had chosen her side long ago. Her allegiance was to Jay, Evie, and Carlos first, and her mother second. Kind of. If her mother was the best available option.

So, when the coronation came, and Ben had that large, ugly, plastic-looking crown put on his head, and promised to protect the people of Auradon, for _better or for worse_, for _richer or for poorer_\- it was really _easy_, to just pick up the wand.

It was like... _taking candy from a baby_.

And, well, what were _they _gonna do about it? No one in Auradon knew _anything_ about magic anymore, not even the _Fairy Godmother._

So, it was _really easy_ to take the wand, it was _really easy_, to say that if they didn't comply with her commands, she'd kill all of them. It was _really easy_ to threaten them with her mother, without actually _letting her mother go free_.

Because Mal knew a couple of things. Not many, but some. She knew, for example, that letting her mother free would be _stupid _because, well, she wasn't an _idiot_. Maleficent didn't _share_. If she let her mother go, there would be any _matching thrones or hers-and-hers_ _crowns_. But, Mal didn't mind sharing, as long as she was sharing with the right people.

She didn't mind sharing with Carlos, for example. Carlos, who she'd known her whole life, and who she loved, and who'd taught her how to count properly because no one else ever could. Who she spent nights with on her thin, cold mattress on the floor when he couldn't go home because Cruella was acting like... well, Cruella.

And she didn't mind sharing with Jay. Jay, who was... stronger than her, most of the time, but wasn't _cruel _about it. Jay, who she'd known longer than she could even remember, and who'd snuck in food for her when her mom forgot, and who went against his father's rules to make sure that Evie was okay.

She didn't mind sharing the throne with Jay, or Carlos, or Evie. Evie, who was probably her best friend in the world. Evie, who knew her like the back of her hand, even though Mal's mother who tried to banish her. Evie, who Mal had met with in secret for years, and had become... _close_ with, against her mother's wishes, and knowing the consequences of what would happen if they were caught together.

So, no, Mal didn't mind sharing with Carlos, or Jay, or Evie. So- _why shouldn't she? _She had the wand, her mother was locked away- their parents were _all_ locked away, and they never had to deal with them if they didn't want to.

So, it wasn't the end of the world if Mal... _forgot_ part of her mother's plan. It _was_ nice, though, to see all the _pretty pink princesses_ and _perfect princes_ of Auradon bow down to her _{it was nice to melt that ugly fucking crown down into a crown of thorns and it was nice to string up their boy-king in a perversion of their_ _god_}. It was nice to be a queen, next to Evie, and to Jay, and to Carlos. To the four of them, _villains' kids_, who Auradon had forgotten about, who they'd condemned to a life in prison for no reason other than their parentage.

It was... something like closure. Something like _karma_. Mal didn't mind it at all {_she also didn't mind the mass murder of the crowd at the coronation- sometimes, to make an omelette, you gotta break a few eggs_}.

After that, everything was kind of a blur. Mal had the wand. Mal was _powerful _with the wand, Mal knew how to _use_ the wand without ever having to learn.

The wand was _supposed_ to be a force for _good_, and in the hands of someone _evil_, it was _very, very _powerful. And very, _very dangerous._

* * *

Evie wanted a palace, so Mal gave her _Auradon's_ palace.

Jay wanted Agrabah, so Mal _gave_ _him_ Agrabah.

Carlos wanted to be free of his mother, so Mal _killed_ his mother.

With the wand, it was easy to give people what they wanted. Easy to take what _she_ wanted. Cause what she wanted- what she really wanted, was to be Queen of the Moors. To take her _mother's _title. She wanted to be able to walk freely past the wall of thorns her mother had constructed all those years ago.

And when she tried, she could.

It was a nice change, to be more powerful than her mother.

They spent some times like that- Evie in Auradon, reforming the country the way _she_ wanted it. jay in Agrabah, wreaking havoc the way his father never managed. She and Carlos on the moors, rewriting her mother's laws to allow for more _freedom_ {_they'd grown up in a cage, was it any surprise that they valued __**freedom**__ above anything else_}.

{_The other times, they spent in each other's arms and beds, wrapped up in themselves and each other_}.

They didn't free the people of the Isle- they weren't some _great salvation_ or messiah.

They were just selfish, and powerful, and happy.


End file.
